Rudolf de Jong interviewed Gaston Leval (1895-1978) about the Spanish Civil War, Spanish anarchism, collectivizations and Leval’s trip to the Soviet Union in 1921. Leval (also pseudonym Pierre Piller) was the son of a communard and proofreader by profession. In 1915, as a French conscientious objector, he went to Spain, where he joined the anarcho-syndicalist trade union movement, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT).

After spending several months in the Soviet Union as a delegate of the CNT in 1921, he settled in Argentina in 1924. In 1934 he returned to Spain where he experienced the Spanish Civil War as an active member of the CNT. Back in France in 1938, he was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for conscientious objection. He escaped in 1940 and fled to the countryside. Throughout the rest of his life he remained committed to the anarchist cause in word and writing. He published a large number of articles, brochures and books in French, Spanish and Italian.

The interviewer wrote an academic paper on the subject called “Triomf en tragiek in Spanje over de CNT en het anarchosyndicalisme” See page 55 of this document

In the IWM series “Royal Navy: lower deck 1910-1922,” British Petty Officer/Court Marshal William Halter (born 1894) speaks with interviewer David Lance about his time in British Navy between 1911 and 1924.

Halter belonged to the Signals and Submarine section. He was part of the 1st Royal Naval Division, sent to Belgium by the British Admiralty in October 1914, a few months after the start of World War I, to try to keep the city of Antwerp out of the hands of the Germans. When that failed, the British soldiers, along with a million Belgians, fled to the Netherlands. Here, as part of the Dutch neutrality policy, they were interned in Groningen.

The interviews were made on behalf of the three-part documentary series De waarheid ligt op het slagveld (16mm film), which Roelof Kiers made for VPRO television about the role of reporters in various wars. Jan Blokker, a Dutch journalist, also helped to create the series. The documentaries was broadcast on November 26 and December 3 and 10, 1978 and lasted a total of 5 hours and 45 minutes. In the VPRO guides of the weeks in which the series was broadcast, background articles relating to the episode under discussion were included.

The first episode, subtitled “…or should I hold my tongue?”, features an interview with Ross Munroe in addition to an overview of reporting from the Crimean War through the Vietnam War. Munroe, a Canadian war correspondent, talks in the interview, among other things, about the raid on Dieppe in August 1942 and what he had to consider in his reporting at the time. The second episode, titled “It was all rock and roll,” incorporates interviews with American reporters of the Vietnam War: Peter Arnett (Associated Press), David Halberstam (New York Times; Pulitzer Prize winner), photographer Tim Page (Life, Time) and CBS television reporter Jack Laurence. The third installment, “Bitte, berichten Sie,” features excerpts from Kiers’ conversations with some of the journalists who provided news coverage on the side of Nazi Germany during World War II. They were then united in the so-called Propaganda Kompanien (PK): Katzke (cameraman east front), Riegger (leader PK team west and east front), Stephan (leader department PK press Propagandaministerium), Viertel (radio reporter east front) and Heysing (journalist west and east front). Interviews that were not included in the series are the interviews with PK reporters Nannen and Ritter von Schramm.

The interviews were conducted as part of Dirk Vlasblom’s publication Papua: a history. This book covers five centuries of Papua’s history, focusing on the period from 1945 onwards and with a special focus on the transfer from the Netherlands to Indonesia in 1962. The book focuses on the perspective of Papuans.

The interviews focus on events and experiences in the years 1920 – 2004.
They mainly discuss Indonesia and West Papua. Themes include World War II, Indonesian revolution, transfer to Indonesia in 1962, occupation.

The collection has been digitised and stored permanently at an e-depot.

Dirk Vlasblom (1952) studied cultural anthropology in Utrecht. With a brief interruption, he has been a correspondent for NRC Handelsblad in Jakarta since 1990. He previously published Jakarta, Jakarta – Reportages from Indonesia (1993), In a warung on the South Sea – Stories from Indonesia (1998) and Anchors & Chains – A Rotterdam Chronicle (2001).
In a compelling way, the author tells the stories of Papua. For this, he drew on unique sources. Protagonists and eyewitnesses speak for themselves, often for the first time. The archives of mission and mission were systematically researched for this book, also for the first time.
With this magisterial work, the author gives the Papuans their history.

For his research on the history of South Sulawesi, in particular political-military developments during the Indonesian revolution, Willem IJzereef conducted some 15 interviews with former government officials and former military personnel.
Records of the interviews and research correspondence are also included in the archive.

The interviews focus on events and experiences in the years 1905 – 1986.
They mainly discuss Indonesia, South Sulawesi. Themes include World War II, Indonesian revolution, Domestic Administration, government officials, South Celebes affair.

Publications linked to the collection: IJzereef, W. (1984). The South Celebes affair: captain Westerling
and the summary executions. Batavian Lion.

Archive and inventory no: D H 1284. Thirteen cassette tapes have been transferred to the AV collection of the KITLV (D AUD 1085 – 1097)

Djoeke Veeninga, later known for her various interviews, interviewed three well-known intellectuals in the context of the Spanish Civil War in 1979. Two of these men fought on the side of the Republicans and all of them were important public intellectuals after the Civil War. These interviews thus deepen our knowledge not only of the Spanish Civil War but also of the intellectual climate of the twentieth century.

They include the following three individuals:

• The communist fighter Arie van Poelgeest (1913-2000), one of the few who didn’t lose their Dutch citizenship upon returning from the Spanish Civil War. Van Poelgeest helped capture the Karl Marx barracks, where George Orwell trained. In a later battle, Van Poelgeest was wounded and met Ernest Hemingway in the hospital. Then, in 1938, he arrived in the Netherlands.
• The Spanish man of letters Francisco Carrasquer (1915-2012), who since 1953 lived in the Netherlands. He was part of the Durruti colony during the Spanish Civil War. His brothers were also part of the anarchist movement within the Spanish Civil War. In 1949, Carrasquer went into exile, first in France and then in the Netherlands. As a university lecturer, he occupied a central place in intellectual life.
• The anarchist Anton Constandse (1899-1985), a journalist, author and publicist. He saw the Spanish Civil War as the last opportunity in history for an anarchist revolution. As an intellectual, he possessed extensive knowledge of Spanish literature and anarchism. In the last years of his life, he could be heard weekly on various radio broadcasts in the Netherlands.

Interviews were prompted by the death of Gerrit ter Haars (Overijssel Dutch East Indies New Guinea Working Group) brother in Indonesia during the Indonesian war of independence and his feeling that Dutch veterans had been wronged.

Both Collection Overijssel (formerly Historical Centre Overijssel) and NIOD facilitated the interviews
facilitated by providing cameras and tapes. The objective was to
generate more attention to this war and all those involved through the publication of a book.
Participants were found through personal networks and snowball sampling.

The interviews focus on events and experiences in the years 1942 – 1962.
They mainly discuss Indonesia, the Netherlands and New Guinea. Themes include Second
World War, Indonesian revolution, reoccupation, independence struggle, war volunteers, conscripts, veterans, Darul Islam, TNI.

De oorlog ver weg, 1942-1949
Nederlands-Indie, de Japanse bezetting en de politionele acties

Auteur: Gerrit ter Haar

Uitgever: Gigaboek, Broek op Langedijk, 2013

ISBN: 9789085483755

De oorlog ver weg, 1949-1962

verhalen via interviews van burgers, militairen die de oorlog in Indië hebben meegemaakt

Auteur: Gerrit Ter Haar

Uitgever: Abc Uitgeverij, 2015
ISBN: 9789079859238

Archive and inventory no: D H 1565. The cassette tapes have been transferred to the AV collection of the KITLV.

The interviews are part of the working material resulting from the curriculum at the UvA on the history of the former Dutch East Indies led by Theo Stevens. P. Schuurmans was allowed to use these interviews for her doctoral thesis Adapting to Holland. The collection consists of the research material belonging to Schuurmans’ thesis.

Besides transcripts of several interviews, the collection also contains a notebook with notes and completed survey forms.

The interviews focus on events and experiences in the years 1942 – 1963.
They mainly discuss Indonesia and the Netherlands. Themes include World War II,
Indonesian revolution, migration, repatriation.

Publications linked to the collection: Schuurmans, P. (2002). Adapting to Holland: research
on Indonesian Dutch and their experience of repatriation 1950-1963 [Doctoral thesis]. University
of Amsterdam.

The East Indies collection was formed from archive and documentation material donated by private individuals. Since 1946, NIOD has been collecting material relating to the period starting with the run-up to World War II until the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949.

The focus has been on the experiences of Dutch people during the Japanese occupation. The collection contains 5 interviews with 6 people conducted for the documentary Je blijft toch een vreemde made by Marius van Deventer, 1983 and 1 interview conducted in 1989 with W.C. van Nifterik on World War II by Werner Zonderop. With the latter interview, poems by the interviewee are also available under inventory number 5444. These poems were written in Tjipinang prison.

The interviews discuss events and experiences in the years 1940 – 1983.
They mainly discuss Indonesia, Jakarta, Makassar and the Netherlands. Themes include World War II, Japanese occupation, Indonesian resistance, sentencing and imprisonment in Tjipinang prison, internment in Camp Makassar and Camp Vincentius, work in the lumbering construction crew, refugees from Singapore.

Origin, objective and/or main question: Independence, decolonisation, violence and war in Indonesia, 1945 – 1950 is a joint research programme of the Royal Institute of Language, Land and Ethnology (KITLV), the Netherlands Institute of Military History (NIMH) and the
NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

The Asymmetric Warfare project is being carried out by NIMH. This project focuses on Dutch military action during the Indonesian War of Independence. Research is conducted within three sub-studies: the Dutch intelligence apparatus, the use of heavy weapons/technical force and the military-justice apparatus. For the purpose of these studies, 21 interviews were conducted.

The interviews focus on events and experiences in the years 1945 – 1949.
They mainly discuss Indonesia and the Netherlands. Themes include Indonesian revolution,
the Dutch intelligence apparatus, technical violence, heavy weapons, the military-justice apparatus.